During My Nervous Breakdown I Want to Have a Biographer Present [Paperback]

Brandon Scott Gorrell (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 20, 2009

Brandon Scott Gorrell's debut full-length poetry book captures the feelings of small, alienated, and highly self-conscious humans who exist in an array of situations, from a very odd Halloween party to a full-scale planetary war involving humans, androids, robots, and aliens. Focusing on severe feelings of low self-worth, meaninglessness, and yearning for something unknown, Brandon Scott Gorrell (who has generated a large internet following of disenchanted youth) uses predominately science fiction imagery in direct, deadpan prose to describe humans in need of meaning that they feel hopeless to attain.

"Bret Easton Ellis for the Gmail chat generation."
- Kelley Hoffman, Refinery 29

"[O]ne of the best books of American poetry I've read in years [...] I recommend [it] very, very highly."
- Michael Schaub, Bookslut

"Gorrell's book is a thoughtful yet humorous collection of entertaining poems. [...] Makes me wish I had kept up with poetry writing."
- Jeffrey Brown, author of Clumsy and Funny Misshapen Body

"[E]xcruciatingly intimate..."
- Bomb Magazine

"[T]horoughly confounding [...] either extremely easy to understand or extremely befuddling [...]."
- Molly Young, We Love You So

"Such hilarious, surprising, aphoristic poems. They do not stop at funny: they move into the territory of sad; the drab panic of daily life."
- Deb Olin Unferth, author of Vacation and Revolution

"I like these poems. I really do. They made me laugh."
- Matthew Rohrer, author of A Green Light and Rise Up

"I feel lonely, and while I'm lonely, reading this book makes me feel less lonely."
- Noah Cicero, author of The Human War

"I have been going through a thing lately of not feeling like I want to read, unless I 'have' to (like I'm on a bus or something), but I read Brandon's book and enjoyed it a lot and felt excited."
- Chris Killen, author of The Bird Room

"Gorrell's poetic landscapes are vast and intangible. His poems explore outer space, Internet, the mind."
- The Rumpus

"Gorrell mixes humor, personification, and hyperbole to show the narrator's inability to relate to people. [...] A line like 'i want to sleep on a zebra while it gets eaten by a lion' may sound funny, but it shows the narrator's desire for a passive but violent death."
- Hipster Book Club

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Brandon Scott Gorrell (b. 1984) lives in Seattle. He has a blog and is the author of an e-book on bear parade.

Product Details

• Paperback: 88 pages
• Publisher: Muumuu House; 1st edition (June 20, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0982206712
• ISBN-13: 978-0982206713
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.2 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 0.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #719,327 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Worth Your Pennies, January 28, 2010

By 

R. Smith (South Bend, IN) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: During My Nervous Breakdown I Want to Have a Biographer Present (Paperback)

Brandon's book, much like the work of Tao Lin, works with elements of youthful (or perhaps not-so-youthful) elements of loneliness and a kind of genuine angst that I find myself all too familiar with--what I tend to call 'existential futility'. I can't help but think there's a definitive aspect of generationism here, as this book to me captures feelings of melancholy boredom I encounter not only personally but in my interactions and conversatios with many of my peers. This, at times, feels simply like a 'blankness', out of which stems a kind of inaction often labeled as laziness which is in truth something much more complicated and not as easily 'dealt with'. This book is trying to 'deal with it'. Reading this book made me feel like I was 'dealing with it'.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars this is a great book, October 14, 2010

By 

brian burke - See all my reviews

This review is from: During My Nervous Breakdown I Want to Have a Biographer Present (Paperback)

brandon mixes autobiographical and surreal images to create a surprisingly fun commentary on depression, anxiety, boredom, and other sad sorts of topics. this is a great book

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars During the Writing of This Nervous Review, I Want to Have My Very Own Brian Gorrell Present, December 22, 2010

By 

M. Kleine - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: During My Nervous Breakdown I Want to Have a Biographer Present (Paperback)

So let's get this out of the way now. I didn't realize I was reading a book of poetry until I got to about page 12. I say this because whenever I read 'normal' poems, I feel like it's a chore, like my brain is becoming numb. Metaphor this, metaphor that; am I really supposed to know what you (the author) mean when you say 'sasquatian interpolation'? With Brandon Scott Gorrell's DURING MY NERVOUS BREAKDOWN I WANT TO HAVE A BIOGRAPHER PRESENT, it felt like I was reading some intense inner-poetry... wrapped in bacon.

The book, DURING MY NERVOUS BREAKDOWN I WANT TO HAVE A BIOGRAPHER PRESENT (just so I know we're both talking about the same book here,) goes beyond 'normal' poetry since it is sincere and most certainly, to the point, I kid you not about this. The book is so 'to-the-point' that I cannot believe an absurdist poet actually wrote this. Trust me when I say that the nonsense actually makes too much sense. The table of contents itself reads like a poem. Now, have I said 'poem' enough times yet? No? Okay. You also won't find many upper-case letters here so if you're into that old-time 'let's all follow the rules of grammar' crap, you won't appreciate this book. Yeah, it's sometimes cool to be lazy like that, it is 2010 after all. And oh yeah, everything is also double-spaced so uh, go crazy with your margin comments and class-discussion-type notes... It's actually encouraged, I think. Or not.